GNE-Homepage (Genootschap Nederland-Engeland)

The Genootschap Nederland-Engeland is a Dutch society which aims at promoting friendly relations between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The British Ambassador is Patron of the Society.

The primary purpose of GNE is to bring together people from the Netherlands and the UK living in the Netherlands, promoting friendship, sharing mutual interests and extending support and information to newcomers.

GNE-Membership

The Genootschap Nederland Engeland, GNE, has both Dutch and English members.

GNE-Branches

The societies nine branches are spread throughout the country. Each branch is run by its own committee which is responsible for the branch`s seasonal programmes. Occasionally branches also organize special national events. For upcoming events and activities see `GNE-Afdelingen` (tabs left) and GNE-Events-Calendar (also tab left)

For whom, and how to become a member of GNE?

All people with interest in concerts, theatre performances, lectures,talks, tours in or travel to England and / or visits of museums where there personal interest of aspects of English and/or British social, artistic, literary, educational, scientific, political or cultural life is a leading factor are welcome to receive membership of our society / association. Our area of interest if of course not just England, in fact it is the whole United Kingdom or UK.
Look at ‘Branches’ (tabs on the left) to see which GNE Branch is closest to you and phone or mail the secretary for a membership. You can also fill in the `Contact GNE` form by clicking on: Contact form.

GNE Young Writers and Public Speaking Awards

The GNE Awards is an annual event consisting of two English language competitions for 16 to 20 year-olds in the Netherlands.The competitions run from January to March each year, with the National Final in April.

The GNE Awards is organised by the Netherlands-England Society (Genootschap Nederland-Engeland).

History of the GNE Awards

The GNE Young Writers and Public Speaking Awards are organised by the Netherlands-England Society (GNE). The organising committee consists of Hans Kräwinkel (chair), Jac van den Ende and Ingrid de Beer. The first competition was run over 25 years ago in 1988, since when it has become a successful annual event with hundreds of participants from all over The Netherlands.Through the years, the Awards has been supported and sponsored by many companies, organisations and individuals. They have contributed in many different ways, by providing facilities, publicity, prizes or just financial support to make this exciting competition possible. The Awards collaborates closely with the English-Speaking Union (ESU), and the GNE Awards provides the Dutch entrant to each year`s ESU International Public Speaking Competition (IPSC) in London, which has frequently gone on to win a prize.Learning languages is hard work and deserves to be rewarded. To young people who strive to achieve excellence in English and make active use of the English language, the GNE Young Writers and Public Speaking Awards give the opportunity to show their creativity and to express their opinions.The two GNE Awards (for young people between 16 and 20 years old) form a common focus for developing effective English language skills. Participation will enhance their communication skills in English. It will help them to be more confident and to express themselves better. You will certainly benefit from it in later years.

During the GNE lecture season, events are regularly held and talks are given about once a month and unless otherwise stated, these are delivered in English. The visiting speakers are all experts in their chosen fields and their lectures are both informative and entertaining. They may feature different aspects of British life, arts and culture, places and people. Occasionally we are also treated to a traveller`s tale. Wherever possible, lectures are illustrated.
An overview of this year`s programme is given below. For more details on our events and talks please click events & talks. For the full programme with dates, venues and entry fees per branch, please click branches.

On 27th September John Cameron-Webb and Gerard Sprenger will be conducting a guided tour of the Market Garden battlefield and on 28th touring the border area of Germany looking at the Rhine Crossing battle of Feb-March 1944 Operation Veritable. The tour will finish at the National War Museum in Overloon, near Venray.Gerard Sprenger: Former history teacher; avid WWII historian and Dutch Grenadier Guardsman.John Cameron-Webb: Battlefield guide mainly focussing on WWI, but has conducted Market Garden with Gerard in the past and Waterloo tours. John has organized already four successful trips for GNE and CADS members about WWI and WWII:
• Amsterdam: `War walk` (2011, with Gerard Sprenger);
• Ieper: (2011);
• Albert (France): `Somme Battlefields` (2012);
• Arnhem: Battlefield Tour `Market-Garden` (2013).

Julian Paren is a physicist by training with a PhD in glaciology awarded by the University of Cambridge for research on the electrical properties of ice carried out at the Scott Polar Research Institute. After a spell as Nuffield Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham he joined the British Antarctic Survey in 1976 and made nine visits to Antarctica. In his later years at BAS he was Director’s Assistant and Head of Information and Archives. Throughout his time at BAS and in retirement he ran adult-education courses for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning.

Martin Papworth specializes in the history and archaeology of the Dorset Iron Age and has written a book on the local tribe known as the Durotriges. He has worked for the NT for 27 years and has been involved in a range of archaeological projects. Martin carried out work at the great Avebury Henge and discovered buried megaliths and was also involved in the Stonehenge Riverside Project which worked out a new chronology for the Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape. Most recently he has been involved in uncovering mosaics at Chedworth Roman Villa after a new cover building was designed and erected over the West Range of the Villa.

Paul Franssen has been teaching British and South African Literature at the University of Utrecht since 1979. His expertise on the Renaisance is accompanied by his interest in some more modern areas and people, such as British 20th century drama. Jane Austen, J. M. Coetzee and Oacar Wilde.

John Pilkington has been called “one of Britain’s greatest tellers of travellers’ tales”.
In 1983, after journeys in Africa and Latin America, he completed a 500-mile solo crossing of the western Nepal Himalaya, and told the story in his first book, Into Thin Air. His interest in Asia grew further with the opening in 1986 of the border between Pakistan and China, making it possible – for the first time in forty years – to retrace virtually the whole of the Silk Road. John was one of the first modern travellers to do so, and he wrote about the journey in An Adventure on the Old Silk Road. This was followed in 1991 by An Englishman in Patagonia; recounting eight months spent exploring the southernmost tip of South America.
In 2000 he became one of only four people in modern times to walk the 1,600-mile Royal Road of the Incas in the Andes of Ecuador and Peru. In 2003 he explored the Mekong River and, with two Tibetans, reached and mapped its source at over 17,000 feet. In 2006 he turned his attention to the Sahara Desert, and joined a camel caravan carrying salt for 450 miles from the mines of Taoudenni to Timbuktu.

John McAleer is Lecturer in History at the University of Southampton and historian of the British Empire. His work focuses on the British encounter and engagement with the wider world in the 18th and 19th centuries, situating the history of empire in its global and maritime contexts.
He is interested in the relationships, interactions and patterns of exchange created by the British Empire, and in assessing the impact of these experiences on both British and colonial societies. Previously, as Curator of Imperial and Maritime History at the National Maritime Museum, he worked on the development and delivery of gallery projects, focusing on Atlantic and Indian Ocean history.

JOHN SUTTON was a Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Polytechnic University. He specialises in the history of Early Modern England and the English Renaissance (1558-1640), the English Civil War and the Jacobite cause. In 1983-84 he made a television series on Eastern England in the 1640s, entitled ‘A War in the Kingdom’ which was screened on Anglia TV. He regularly hosts special interest gatherings on a wide range of historical subjects. He has previously talked to the GNE branches on topics such as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Charles I and Elizabeth I. His last GNE lecture tour was in October 2009 when he spoke on `Rob Roy - hero or villain`.

Dr. Adam White is curator at Lotherton Hall, a country house museum between Leeds and York. He also has a research interest in the architecture and sculpture of the early 17th century in Britain when ties between England and the Netherlands were particularly close. Dr. Adam White will give a talk about the life and work of Nicholas Stone the Elder (1586/7-1647) who was the leading English mason-sculptor in the period c.1620-42. Stone the Elder was a pupil of Hendrick de Keyser, master mason to the City of Amsterdam and a leading Dutch sculptor of his time, and he married de Keyser`s daughter Mayken (Mary). Dr. Adam White has written several articles on Stone and he features largely in the Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors c.1560-1660 which he published with the Walpole Society in London in 1999 (with supplement 2009).

Arthur van Essen taught English in Dutch secondary schools, and from 1971 was lecturer, then senior lecturer, and finally full professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Pedagogy in the University of Groningen. He became professor emeritus in 2003. He has lectured extensively throughout Europe, Africa and America, often on missions for the British Council. One of his chief interests is the teaching of English to speakers of other languages.